I am not able to figure out which one to buy. All of them have same features and there is no major differences. I searched on the net and found that Seagate and WD are the leading manufacturers, but personally I have no experience.

I will be using it mostly for storing movies, music and software setups.

check the following
Connectivity (some comes with two wires for old computers)
speed (number of spin cycles per second)
size (smaller the better)
Manufacturer support ( more the better)

Grr

October 26, 2012 at 4:34 pm

I would recommend WD, as I have 2 WD Ext drives (not USB powered).
They work perfectly.

Oldest drive is 4 years

mohit kumar

October 26, 2012 at 5:35 am

Don't go for WD or Seagate. Buy Toshiba. It has longer shelf life than WD and Seagate.

Giggity Goebbels

December 10, 2012 at 5:49 am

Toshiba hard drive blows!i have one and its not very good

Hunbuhbhuygb Ygygbgybygb

December 14, 2012 at 1:15 am

Thats true toshiba hard drives are lemons

Anonymous

October 26, 2012 at 1:06 am

I have used both Seagate and Western Digital 1TB USB drives. In my experience, the Western Digital drives have worked longer without problems or errors.

Achraf Almouloudi

October 26, 2012 at 12:51 am

Get Seagate or Wd they are of high quality .

Gravity Dead

October 25, 2012 at 5:43 pm

well I would recommend "Transcend StoreJet 25H3P" it's 1TB and main feature of it is shock proof (atleast this is what the company claims)

and backup n etc etc features are too available

but there is one negative point that it needs two USB ports to work at its full speed
I mean t work on 1 USB port too but not at its full speed

and if this "two-USB-port" is a real deal breaker for ya (cause its not for me, at least I will have a peace of mind that it safe to some extent if I drop it by mistake)
then I would recommend "WD My Passport"

Seagate, W.D, Hitachi etc are all good names a great drives. In the end go for the cheapest. I have a 250GB USB 2 Seagate now for about 4 Years now with had Music, Apps and Pictures on it. I have just got myself a USB 3 Hitachi Touro 1TB which had great reviews I then took everything of my Seagate and put on my Hitachi. The thing I like about the Hitachi drive is that it supports drag and drop or copy & paste, it has no backup sofware on it unlike the Seagate which I deleted to stop it backing up everytime you connected the drive.

Personally based on my own experience (I'm a computer tech) I won't be buying or recommending any more Seagates.

Yiz Borol

October 24, 2012 at 11:35 pm

It's really up to you, when it comes to quality every 1 in a million is a lemon, just the reality. so you might get screwed but probably not. really look for the cheapest price use woot and amazon to shop around, try for 7500RPM but 5000RPM is also okay.

LaDonna Garner

October 24, 2012 at 9:28 pm

In the past, I chose Seagate but I'm currently happy with a 2T Fantom GreenDrive. It's eco-friendly and easy to setup. I've purchased several from pcmall.com & macmall.com as they run deals all of the time. Good luck shopping!

Ray Randall

October 24, 2012 at 8:28 pm

Stay away from anything with the word "book" in it, mybook, passbook, etc.
I have always had a good experience with Western Digital Drives

Saajan Sood

October 24, 2012 at 5:47 pm

i Personally Recommend Seagate and WD. Both provides best quality with 3 years warranty. go for the one with price you find suitable.

but the new Seagate Backup Plus is a good choice in terms of speed and performance or the WD My Passport Portable is good too....

many prefer WD for its better customer service...but any one will do; choose any one which you feel like; you won't regret... :-)

Yudono Ra

October 24, 2012 at 5:05 pm

yupe Western Digital is known for their quality and performance, i would also recomended Bufallo Ministation (it support both USB 3.0 and Thunder Bolt) and with anti shock :)

ps: Buffallo is a Japanese product, quite well known
i've used it almost 4 month, and quite satisfied with it

Anonymous

October 24, 2012 at 3:59 pm

Better of going for an nas like my book live once set up you can access from any pc via built in software or ftp client got mine hooked up to xbox 360 for movies wireless connection as well

Megan-Harley Hayden

October 24, 2012 at 3:53 pm

I had a 1TB Seagate external hard-disk and now have a 2 TB WD and in my opinion the WD seems much more sturdy than my old Seagate. If you're looking for something that can take a bit more wear and tear I would definitely recommend a WD.

As has been said, speed wise they are both pretty much identical and it would be a good idea to look for the longer warranty.

Any drive that fully supports USB 3.0 is going to be similar in function. From a practical stand point though let me throw some weight behind Western Digital. In my consulting business we have used a bunch of external drives over the years and I have had every brand die over time, but we consistently have fewer issues with WD. Just remember to plug it into a surge protector because the circuit boards built into these drives are pretty easy to damage.

Note that most brands now will ship these drives with some software on the drive for backups. They work okay but I generally remove them. Also note that if you are moving all your files onto this drive you are creating a single point of failure where if you lost the drive you would be losing all the data so have copies in a second location or consider a storage system with more than one drive. There are a bunch of 2 drive options where the drives can be set to mirror each other so you aren't left with nothing if a single drive dies. You can get more fancy with a Network Attached Storage (NAS) but if you just want USB3.0 you might want to consider something from Buffalo Tech (The WD version is USB2.0 only)http://amzn.com/B004J6JW1Y

Dino Pearsons

October 24, 2012 at 12:40 pm

Seagate and WD are pretty much similar when it comes to quality, although you'll find people telling you differently.

Honestly, I'd go for the manufacturer that offers a longer warranty.

Speed-wise, they're the same, quality-wise as well. So choose the one which offers better support (and that of course depends on your location).